Hospitals in KW

[the_conestoga_guy]

If you don't build a hospital that's easily accessible by transit, then you're only signalling to your constituents that you only care about them if they're able to afford a car. It's not particularly equitable to force someone on ODSP to pay for a cab to get to an appointment. I'm sure, in a perfect world, we could build out an area with heaps of surface parking AND rapid transit access. But if we're forced to choose between the two, I'm picking transit access 100% of the time. In reality, a site like the Aud lands makes perfect sense if we're building the Phase 3 Ion along Ottawa, and we're able to build multi-level parking garages instead of surface lots.

Using LHSC as an example to justify a sprawling campus is funny, because London is one of the worst cities in Ontario for its lack of public transit investment. We shouldn't be placing it on a pedestal and praising it as an example of hospital design.

I actually don't mind the UW north campus as a location (assuming UW also gets to build out a medical faculty). It would benefit from being adjacent to the ION, and it's pretty easy to access from the highway (assuming traffic lights are given priority to emergency vehicles). Plus, access to the local environmental amenities could be great for the patients.

[panamaniac]

That being said, to ijmorlan's comment, there is actually a huge benefit to having facilities co-located in a hospital, the point is to share common facilities, like labs, imaging, and other services. While it's easy for staff to move between facilities, it's very hard for patients to move between facilities. I can see the value in co-locating the facilities, but it doesn't change that the land requirement is totally absurd. The land requirement is driven by parking and nothing else.

Those are good points. I’m not sure it really says that long-term cancer, say, really needs to be co-located with maternity, but I agree there are benefits to having things together.

I would dispute that the land “requirement” is driven by parking. The main parking lot at Pearson Airport Terminal 1 is on about 5ha or 12 acres. It holds 9000 vehicles. Just how many patients are they expecting at this new hospital?

I believe the land requirement is just picked to be ample, with no consideration of the consequences. To be fair, this is normal for car infrastructure: it would be “nice” if there were space for everybody to park when they go to the store, so we have parking minima for commercial buildings, and it’s handy to have a place to park at home, so we have parking minima there too; those of us who question this clearly do not possess the degree of expertise possessed by our credentialed planners.

If I were to guess, I would think that a new K-W hospital would have a 2,000+ vehicle parking garage.  It needs to accomodate employees, patients, visitors, and assorted others.  The new Ottawa Hospital will be larger and the garage, now under construction, will accomodate 2,500 cars.

[the_conestoga_guy]

If you don't build a hospital that's easily accessible by transit, then you're only signalling to your constituents that you only care about them if they're able to afford a car. It's not particularly equitable to force someone on ODSP to pay for a cab to get to an appointment. I'm sure, in a perfect world, we could build out an area with heaps of surface parking AND rapid transit access. But if we're forced to choose between the two, I'm picking transit access 100% of the time. In reality, a site like the Aud lands makes perfect sense if we're building the Phase 3 Ion along Ottawa, and we're able to build multi-level parking garages instead of surface lots.

Using LHSC as an example to justify a sprawling campus is funny, because London is one of the worst cities in Ontario for its lack of public transit investment. We shouldn't be placing it on a pedestal and praising it as an example of hospital design.

I actually don't mind the UW north campus as a location (assuming UW also gets to build out a medical faculty). It would benefit from being adjacent to the ION, and it's pretty easy to access from the highway (assuming traffic lights are given priority to emergency vehicles). Plus, access to the local environmental amenities could be great for the patients.

To add to this, transit access needs to be given priority.

Not only do many people need to rely on public transit for attending appointments, so does the hospital's staff. If we're being presented an opportunity to locate one of the Region's largest employers, why would we choose to force the staff to drive if we could instead move them by transit? Of course the surgeon on-call is going to opt to drive their Audi, but that doesn't mean the nurses and PSWs and support staff need to drive to get to their scheduled shift.

This issue is further compounded by the affordability crisis we're facing. PSWs, for instance, are paid low wages to begin with. We shouldn't force them to own and maintain a car just to get to work, when they could instead save that money for food and rent.

Honestly, there's no debate to be had here.

[tomh009]

To add to this, transit access needs to be given priority.

I don't think it's necessary to choose a location on a bus route. Rather, we need to ensure that whatever the location will be, GRT will implement good transit service to it. And I really don't expect anything different.

[panamaniac]

To add to this, transit access needs to be given priority.

I don't think it's necessary to choose a location on a bus route. Rather, we need to ensure that whatever the location will be, GRT will implement good transit service to it. And I really don't expect anything different.

It's a given, although a location at an LRT station would be very good.

[tomh009]

I don't think it's necessary to choose a location on a bus route. Rather, we need to ensure that whatever the location will be, GRT will implement good transit service to it. And I really don't expect anything different.

It's a given, although a location at an LRT station would be very good.

By the time the hospital is built, we'll probably be working on ION phase 3 ...

[panamaniac]

I guess there's no timeframe yet suggested - sometime in the 2030s?

[ijmorlan]

I'm no fan of the automobile but there are still lots of valid reasons why people either prefer to or are obligated to drive to one.

I honestly do not understand why you don’t (seem to) realize that people around here generally understand that some people will drive to the hospital. What hospital management clearly doesn’t understand is that insisting from the beginning on such a large site will cause the hospital to be in the middle of nowhere, which will cause severe trouble for people who would want to take public transit.

You claim that there is a reason for needing such a large site. What reason? We’ve already established that it’s larger than any other hospital campus anyone can come up with. We’ve established that you could build the Pearson Terminal 1 parking lot on a small fraction of the proposed site. We already have multiple hospitals; so if the city grows even more (2 million people in the Region of Waterloo?), don’t you think there should be multiple hospitals, not one mega hospital?

As far as I can see, all the reasons one might come up with for not just wanting, but insisting up front on, such a huge site have been completely refuted. Are there any others still hiding in the wings?

What we should be insisting on is a site with excellent public transit access and short driving distances (these go together). If that means it has to be 2 towers on 2 separate sites, that’s fine. We’re a pretty big city and it’s a good, not a bad, thing for the hospital to have a reasonable number of sites, with different functions allocated between them (and in some cases duplicated) carefully.

[panamaniac]

I'm no fan of the automobile but there are still lots of valid reasons why people either prefer to or are obligated to drive to one.

I honestly do not understand why you don’t (seem to) realize that people around here generally understand that some people will drive to the hospital. What hospital management clearly doesn’t understand is that insisting from the beginning on such a large site will cause the hospital to be in the middle of nowhere, which will cause severe trouble for people who would want to take public transit.

You claim that there is a reason for needing such a large site. What reason? We’ve already established that it’s larger than any other hospital campus anyone can come up with. We’ve established that you could build the Pearson Terminal 1 parking lot on a small fraction of the proposed site. We already have multiple hospitals; so if the city grows even more (2 million people in the Region of Waterloo?), don’t you think there should be multiple hospitals, not one mega hospital?

As far as I can see, all the reasons one might come up with for not just wanting, but insisting up front on, such a huge site have been completely refuted. Are there any others still hiding in the wings?

What we should be insisting on is a site with excellent public transit access and short driving distances (these go together). If that means it has to be 2 towers on 2 separate sites, that’s fine. We’re a pretty big city and it’s a good, not a bad, thing for the hospital to have a reasonable number of sites, with different functions allocated between them (and in some cases duplicated) carefully.

Post #65.  To which one could add the new (2021) hospital in Vaughan (25 hectares).

[danbrotherston]

I honestly do not understand why you don’t (seem to) realize that people around here generally understand that some people will drive to the hospital. What hospital management clearly doesn’t understand is that insisting from the beginning on such a large site will cause the hospital to be in the middle of nowhere, which will cause severe trouble for people who would want to take public transit.

You claim that there is a reason for needing such a large site. What reason? We’ve already established that it’s larger than any other hospital campus anyone can come up with. We’ve established that you could build the Pearson Terminal 1 parking lot on a small fraction of the proposed site. We already have multiple hospitals; so if the city grows even more (2 million people in the Region of Waterloo?), don’t you think there should be multiple hospitals, not one mega hospital?

As far as I can see, all the reasons one might come up with for not just wanting, but insisting up front on, such a huge site have been completely refuted. Are there any others still hiding in the wings?

What we should be insisting on is a site with excellent public transit access and short driving distances (these go together). If that means it has to be 2 towers on 2 separate sites, that’s fine. We’re a pretty big city and it’s a good, not a bad, thing for the hospital to have a reasonable number of sites, with different functions allocated between them (and in some cases duplicated) carefully.

Post #65.  To which one could add the new (2021) hospital in Vaughan (25 hectares).

I'd reframe the argument a bit. There are other large, wastefully sprawling hospital campuses. But there are also large, major hospitals on smaller sites. Ergo, it is possible, if we choose, to put it on a smaller plot.

[ijmorlan]

Post #65.  To which one could add the new (2021) hospital in Vaughan (25 hectares).

I'd reframe the argument a bit. There are other large, wastefully sprawling hospital campuses. But there are also large, major hospitals on smaller sites. Ergo, it is possible, if we choose, to put it on a smaller plot.

Oh indeed! That Vaughan site (which I hadn’t heard of before) is about the same 60 acres, but doesn’t change my opinion one bit — just because there is one other huge hospital, doesn’t mean that’s the way to go. It’s even possible it could make sense for some hospital somewhere to be huge (maybe a centre for treatment of unusual conditions drawing people from across the country?), and it still wouldn’t be the right thing for Waterloo’s new hospital. It cannot possibly make sense for our only emergency department to be out in the suburbs, for example.

I took a look at the hospital on Google Maps. Couldn’t be more suburban, although to be fair Vaughan is entirely suburban so it might not matter. And what is the name of that murderer Marco Muzzo doing on the main tower?

https://globalnews.ca/news/3677574/marco...-donation/

(note: he was not convicted of murder; that is my assessment of his moral culpability)

But it’s got a green roof so I guess it’s OK.

[nms]

Speaking of the Vaughan Hospital, its first official step was when the City of Vaughan established the Vaughan Health Care Foundation in 2004, and independent non-profit organization with the primary task to "bring a hospital and ancillary services" to Vaughan.  The Ontario government gave official approval in 2007 and a search for a suitable property. Fourteen years later, the hospital became a full service hospital in June 2021.

Using that timeline as a guide, provided a piece of land can be found quickly (it took two years in Vaughan), the new hospital might be open sometime between 2035 and 2040.

I used the London Hospital campus as that was the only large campus that I was familiar with.  

As for the location, I'm also reminded that when K-W hospital was being proposed, Waterloo and Berlin were arguing about who would host the jointly funded hospital.  In 1895, Joseph Seagram settled the dispute by donating a parcel of land on the border between the two.

[taylortbb]

They're running a public survey about hospital location. I hope people here fill it out and explains why a location with good transit access is important.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2MBJ2QB

[Rainrider22]

I did it. I emphasized public transit. I noted that they expect the process to be complete by March 2024. Seems aggressive.

[ac3r]

I filled it out. Tried to highlight the importance of transit and the need to consider the urban plan of the region in regards to increased population density to serve the most people going forward. I also emphasized the very neglected aspects of institutional architectural design, where creating an interior that is functional and logical to both staff as well as patients, but which also has a nice environment as it is proven that it has positive impacts on patients with neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric diseases, oncology patients, children and adolescents and so on is worth investing in. The current hospital is so weirdly outdated but not. You can be on one floor and some wings haven't been renovated beyond a new paint job since 1950 yet you turn the other way and it was clearly redesigned in 2000 or something. It's also uncomfortable in some areas. I've been in the ACE (Advanced Care for the Elderly or something) for example which are elderly people who are dementia or other debilitating disorders and damn it is such depressing wing. These are people who don't know what is going on and they're kept in a highly secured hallway that hasn't been touched since the 50s, dark floors and walls and lights that barely illuminate the room around them. Same with the psychiatric unit being on the basement (though we actually prefer doing this with psychiatric hospitals when designing them, so as to minimize the risk of a patient escaping and either intentionally or unintentionally plunging to their death). These areas are so depressing with minimal light and no open fresh air, with nowhere to go besides a straight 20 meter long hallway with no windows.

Anyway...maybe we'd get something like these two? Probably not but I can dream:

(Pictured is Khoo Teck Puat Hospital by RMJM in Singapore and Shenzhen Children's Hospital Science & Education Building in Shenzhen, China although this hospital is unironically more my style...and that sort of very minimalistic and contemporary look is shown to have a positive impact on patients, even though at first glance you may think it is super sterile and institutional looking heh.)